State Western Australia MP Simone McGurk Area 47 km² Namesake Fremantle | Dates current 1890–present Electors 28,765 (2017) Member of parliament Simone McGurk Party Australian Labor Party | |
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Demographic Electoral region of South Metropolitan | ||
Fremantle is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Western Australia.
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The district is located in the inner south-west of Perth, centring on the port of Fremantle.
Fremantle is a historically safe Labor seat, though the Greens WA have polled well in recent times. Labor held the seat from 1924 until a 2009 by-election which was lost to Greens candidate Adele Carles. Carles quit the party in the following year, sitting as an independent for the remainder of her term. The seat returned to Labor at the 2013 election.
Geography
Fremantle is a north–south elongated electorate. It is bounded to the north by the Swan River and to the west by the Indian Ocean. A series of roads make up the district's short southern and long eastern boundary. The district takes in the suburbs of Beaconsfield, East Fremantle, Fremantle, North Coogee, South Fremantle and White Gum Valley, as well as parts of the suburbs of Bicton, Hamilton Hill, Palmyra and Spearwood. The district also includes Rottnest Island.
History
Created for the 1890 election, Fremantle was one of the original 30 districts of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. It has remained as an electorate ever since. In its early years, the seat changed hands regularly between different candidates. However, the seat became more favourable to the Labor Party in the early 20th century, and was a Labor seat at all times between 1924 and 2008.
Fremantle's longest-serving member was Joseph Sleeman, member for 35 years from 1924 to 1959. David Parker, member for Fremantle from 1980 to 1990, served as Deputy Premier of Western Australia under Premier Peter Dowding from 1988 to 1990. The seat's member until his retirement in 2009 was Jim McGinty, who was the Opposition Leader from 1994 to 1996 and Attorney-General in the Gallop and Carpenter governments from 2001 to 2008. He was replaced in the Fremantle state by-election, 2009 by Greens candidate Adele Carles, who won the seat having outpolled Labor on the primary vote, and gaining sufficient preference flow to fill McGinty's vacancy. In doing so, Carles set a number of firsts for the Greens in Australia.